News Category

With Trinity Mirror’s purchase of the Daily Express and Daily Star, football fans who get their news online can expect a tag-team movement of total balls. All titles use their websites as clickbait farms. The latest tosh involves Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette, who has, says the Mirror, “given an update on his recovery from a knee injury”.

In its dash for clicks, the Mirror tells readers approaching via Google’s bots that Lacazette is bidding “for a quick recovery” (as opposed to hoping for a slow recovery and lots of sick pay and daytime telly?), illustrating the teaser with a photo of Arsenal’s Hector Bellerin and, er, Robbie Lyle, presenter of the entertaining Arsenal Fan TV

Clicking into the story and readers are told Lacazette will be sidelined for “up to five weeks”. Arsene Wenger’s words to BeIn Sports that Lacazette could be out for “four or five weeks” are repeated. There’s no word on any “quick recovery”. That much is utter balls.

And then this spot some time illiteracy:

A return date on the pitch could occur against either West Ham on April 21 or Manchester United on April 28 with a return to first team training likely to begin at the start of April.

Lacazette underwent surgery on February 12. Four or five weeks after that take us up to mid March. Even if you add on a few days from the operation until Wenger spoke, Lacazette still looks likely to return well before April.

But having spun a nonsense story from a single photo of Lacazette’s poorly knee as he work out in the Arsenal gym – one taken by the player and posted to his Instagram page – the Mirror’s clickbait expert needs to hit his word count. So we get this:

Until Lacazette’s return, Wenger will put his faith in Aubameyang, though the Gabon striker is unable to help in their quest to win the Europa League. Despite overcoming Ostersund 3-0 in the first leg of the round of 32 tie, a probable last 16 tie will occur on March 8 and 13, with a potential quarter-final on April 5 and 12.

That means Arsenal’s most probable route back into the Champions League will rest on Danny Welbeck’s form.

No. It won’t because Arsenal are not a one-man team and Lacazettte will be back in March. In addition, the last 16 ties will be played on March 8 and 15. March 12 is a Monday. Europa League ties are played on Thursdays.

Apart from the story being factually inaccurate and based on total balls, it is spot on.

PS: But there is good news. Cop a load of the ads that wrapped around the balls. We counted – get this – 23 ads on this one story.

It’s almost as if the words are just a trick to make you see lots and lots and lots of ads…

Justin Forsyth resigned his post as chief executive at Save The Children because he made, in his words, “unsuitable and thoughtless” comments to three younger women. The evidence is in a “barrage” of text messages the current deputy executive director at Unicef sent female staff in which he appraised their looks and clothes. Mr Forsyth was never subjected to a formal disciplinary hearing. Save the Children says it did examine Mr Forsyth in 2011 and 2015. And that was it. Back then whatever he did was deemed to be ok. Now it isn’t.

Forsyth is a forgettable looking chap with the looks of a minor public school’s cricket coach. “I made some personal mistakes during my time at Save the Children,” he states. “I recognise that on a few occasions I had unsuitable and thoughtless conversations with colleagues which I now know caused offence and hurt.”

Were they thoughtless? Or was he thinking, you know, with his manhood? It’s pretty hard to bang out a text without engaging any brain power. Unless it was instinctive and Forsyth was operating on the same level as a sponge reacting to the presence of water or a puppy on the vicar’s leg. Where does flirting slide over into sexual harassment? A YouGov survey tells us that over a quarter of 18 to 24 consider winking “always or usually” sexual harassment – the figure falls to 6% for over-55s. Two thirds of the same think the same of wolf-whistling – for over 55s it was 15%. Nottinghamshire police consider wolf-whistling a “hate crime”.

“When this was brought to my attention on two separate occasions,” Forsyth continues, “I apologised unreservedly to the three colleagues involved and my apologies were accepted and I thought the issue was closed many years ago.”

Well, it wasn’t closed. One woman tells the BBC: “The complaints of harassment were not treated with the appropriate degree of seriousness. It seems there was more interest in preventing the exposure of misconduct than in protecting its female employees from predatory behaviour.”

The PR is now in full cry. Following new that Brendan Cox was not best behaved when he worked at Save The Children, the charity tells everyone: “We apologise for any pain these matters have caused and sincerely hope that the complainants feel able to help us with the review in the coming weeks.”

We apologise for the reactions. But not for doing anything wrong. Indeed, we urge the alleged victims to trust us. Only we can get to the bottom of things. Adding: “This is so that we can better support our skilled and highly valued staff as they help change the lives of millions of children around the world every day.” Translation: we’re great. Sure some of your charitable donations will go on staff reviews, PR and guff. But keep giving!

The Guardian has a few words on the Russian State-funded trolls accused of swinging the 2016 US Presidential election from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump. Russia saw in Trump, so the allegation follows, a better chance to grow and protect its monocular, illiberal interests.

The Russian regime often looks guiltier than a dog stood by a pile of poo. When the Russian PR machine talks, you’d be wise to hold your nose. It’s a steady stream of bull-made effluent. And it makes you wonder why Russia’s tosh has been imbibed with such power. Did Russian bots and spods really win it for Trump, boost Bernie Sanders and root for the Green Party’s Jill Stein? Is its propaganda so much more effective than the stuff seeping from Western regimes? And why does any of it matter?

The Cold War was won. But look out – the Ruskies have moved on from invasion and armed global socialism to a fearsome social media strategy. They might not be able to hack United States military supercomputers and trigger World War III, but they’ve got some terrific gossip about Clinton having had on-the-clock sex with Trump on a yellowy waterbed as Saddam Hussein drummed out Back in the USSR on Bono’s buttocks. (That was the rumour, right? If not, Oleg, call me, I have ideas and hashtags.) Whatever the truth, mentally-negligible Mary-Sue in a swing state bought it.

The Guardian tell us:

It was from American political activists that they [Russian trolls] received the advice to target “purple” swing states, something that was essential to the ultimate success of the campaign.

Well, quite. You target the area where you can have most effect. You know, like the, er, Guardian did:

To maximise the likelihood of your efforts making a difference, we’ve zeroed in on one of the places where this year’s election truly will be decided: Clark County, Ohio, which is balanced on a razor’s edge between Republicans and Democrats. In the 2000 election, Al Gore won Clark County by 1% – equivalent to 324 votes – but George Bush won the state as a whole by just four percentage points. This time round, Ohio is one of the most crucial swing states: Kerry and Bush have been campaigning there tire lessly – they’ve visited Clark County itself – and the most recent Ohio poll shows, once again, a 1% difference between the two of them. The voters we will target in our letter-writing initiative are all Clark County residents, and they are all registered independents, which somewhat increases the chances of their being persuadable.

Before Twitter, there was the Guardian’s interventionism. Called Operation Clark County, the paper wanted to “help readers have a say in the American election by writing to undecided voters in the crucial state of Ohio”.

Here was one reaction from the mouth-breathing colonials:

KEEP YOUR FUCKIN’ LIMEY HANDS OFF OUR ELECTION. HEY, SHITHEADS, REMEMBER THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR? REMEMBER THE WAR OF 1812? WE DIDN’T WANT YOU, OR YOUR POLITICS HERE, THAT’S WHY WE KICKED YOUR ASSES OUT. FOR THE 47% OF YOU WHO DON’T WANT PRESIDENT BUSH, I SAY THIS … TOUGH SHIT!PROUD AMERICAN VOTING FOR BUSH!

How the modern Left loves democracy. You can intervene if is means sneaking the demos the right answer to the big question. Noble Obama telling us a vote for Brexit would put us to the back of the queue and helpful Bill Clinton backing Boris Yeltsin with $1bn of aid are great. But a Russian nerd in an out-of-town office tweeting bollocks is a threat to democracy – something so precious that its champions call everyone who voted for Trump and Brexit thick as custard.

So much for confidence in democracy. Because that’s it, no? It’s not about Russian might. It’s about us thinking our way of life is so precarious that a few rogue propagandists can destroy it with a tweet.

The Manchester City website leads with a photo of referee Anthony Taylor showing City defender Fabian Delph a red card following the England man’s foul on Wigan Athletic’s Max Power. City says the “red seemed harsh”. The Wigan website doesn’t agree. Over there,Delph was given his marching orders for a late challenge on Power”. No controversy.

Wigan’s manger Paul Cook offers his take: “The dismissal gave us a massive lift. It was a huge factor in the game and I thought the referee got it right.”

The game ended 1-0 to Wigan. The dismissal surely help Wigan’s cause. But Man City failed to score. “Undoubtedly the decision to send Fabian Delph for an early bath was the game’s key moment,” says City. But surely the biggest moment was Will Grigg’s goal.

Pep Guardiola was more circumspect than his club’s press office. He didn’t claim the dismissal had been a decisive factor. “I don’t think it was,” he said. “We played well in the second half. We created more than enough chances to go through but in the end the result speaks for itself. We didn’t score any goals and Wigan did.”

What it all as, of course, was a stirring reminder of how chaotic and brilliant football is. Away from all the post-match guff, analytics and leading edge software packages operated by IT-illiterate ex-pros, the most expensive squad in football was turned over by a team in which Will Grigg is the Latics’ most expensive player at £1.3m.

Are we more suspicious of adults then ever? “One minute I was brushing my teeth, the next I was being told I was a paedophile,” says Karl Pollard, whose ordeal began when he checked into a Travelodge with his 14-year-old daughter, Stephanie.

Staff at the Travelodge in Macclesfield, Cheshire, didn’t much like the look of the 46-year-old, in town to visit his ill mother. “When we arrived the receptionist gave me a weird look but I thought nothing of it,” he says. “We went up to the room to get unpacked and ready to see my mum. It was only a 20-minute walk away, which is why I chose the hotel. About 10 minutes later there was a knock at the door. A policewoman was standing there. I thought something had happened to my mum or my wife. But she said, ‘We’ve had a call from Travelodge, they believe you are a paedophile grooming underage girls’.”

“I explained to her [the police officer who interviewed them separately] that I was Stephanie’s dad. The officer had to ask her loads of questions to prove it. My mum has just been diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer. We’re not sure how long she has left. I wanted to take Stephanie down to visit her before she started treatment.”

Mr Pollard’s, Stephanie’s mother, wasn’t with them because she has multiple sclerosis.

“My daughter was in tears. She was so scared – and thought I was going to get taken away,” he adds.

Travelodge then endeavours to explain, offering a classic non-apology apology, containing the prerequisite sympathetic back story and a dash of moral smugness:

“All our hotel teams are trained according to national guidelines supported by the NSPCC. In the past proactive action by our hotel teams has helped to safeguard young people at risk. In this instance we got it wrong.”

And you thought they just operated budget hotels. Turns out they’re an arm of the purpose-seeking police, who view men as potential threats to children. It’s sound and rational to be worried by men.

Cheshire Police then offer: “Police were called at 3pm on Thursday 8 February to reports of suspicious activity at a hotel on Waters Green in Macclesfield.”

Who was acting suspiciously? Mr Pollard and his daughter weren’t. Unless, you’ve invested in the notion that all adults are suspects.

“Staff at the Travelodge did the right thing by reporting what they believed to be suspicious activity to officers, although thankfully there was nothing untoward and it turned out to be a misunderstanding.”

Good to know the police approve of innocent men being treated as suspects first whose innocence needs to be established. don’t trust one another. Trust only in the police and the State.

Like you, everyone else thought Cheryl Cole / Surname and former One Direction extra Liam Payne would spend the next decades together in Instagramed bliss. But, then, we also thought “the nation’s sweetheart” (Cheryl – source: all papers) would hang on in their with her first two husbands.

It turns out that Cheryl and Liam are not getting on well. The pair are “preparing to end their relationship”, in much the same way as mere mortals prepare to end a bath or log off twitter. You know how it is: you pull the plug, see the water circling life’s plughole, call your agent and announce that “crisis talks” with the rubber duck might not work.

A few unnamed “friends” helpfully call the Sun to say that Cheryl is “very private” – see photos of her arse and marriage in OK! – that she is an “amazing” mother to the couple’s child, Bear, has been “left holding the baby”, how she will “battle” on, and open Cheryl’s Trust Centre, a place where “vulnerable young people” can feel her unique brand of love.

Delight for Rochdale as the latest of late goals secured a 2-2 draw with Spurs in the FA Cup. Rochdale fell behind when Harry Kane converted a penalty ‘won’ by the slippery-shoed Dele Alli.

The midfielder has form when it comes to tumbling in the box.

Alli has been booked three times for diving. His is the worst record in the Premiership. He is a persistent cheat. But what about other players not booked for diving outside the box? Pretty much every match features moments when the lightest physical contact sees a player fall theatrically to the ground. Is it fair to pick out Alli?

When Alli burst into Rochdale’a penalty area there was an inevitability about him ending up on his backside. Was it a foul? Should this have been given? Get a load of his legs as he falls over.

Anyone who says that Dele Alli didn’t dive again for a penalty, needs to take a closer look at the incident and explain why, from a standing start, he can move forward 2 metres and somehow end up with his legs so high in the air without instigating the movement himself?#ROCTOTpic.twitter.com/OpugqjlJO1

“I’m led to believe he [Alli] was looking for it, but why not?” Hill opined. “If players feel there is an opportunity to be gained then brilliant, I don’t hold it against him. I don’t blame him and I don’t have a problem with it. Whether it’s him, Harry Kane or (Rochdale striker) Ian Henderson, it doesn’t matter who does it. If he does that for England in the World Cup this summer then I will definitely be supporting him.”

The odd thing is that if you cheat and the penalty is given, the FA can ban you for two matches. But the result secured by a converted penalty kick unfairly earned stands. Cheat and fail, and you get a yellow card. Chris Sutton muses: “There are two many players who are looking for contact. Alli is one, Wilfried Zaha is another. They need to be fearful of what punishment they will face.”

So what punishment fits the crime? A red card? A penalty for the other team? Points deducted?

Who sets the news agenda that makes Israel the top story, China only newsworthy when our politicians are there for business and the allegation that Brendan Cox sexually harassed two women, a claim he denies, the lead issue on Sky and the BBC? Sky News led with Cox this morning on the telly, and the story is the second most vital on the BBC ‘s website, there after reaction to mass murder at a Florida school. And not that Cox (and, no, it’s not nominative determinism; he denies it) is the main thrust of his own story. The Beeb’s headline is: “Murdered MP’s widower Brendan Cox quits charities.”

The Telegraph pads it out, telling readers that Cox has quit two charities “set up in her memory after sexual assault allegations from his past resurfaced”.

Brendan Cox denied sexually harassing two women while he was married to the late politician, but accepted “inappropriate” behaviour, saying: “I made mistakes and behaved in a way that caused some women hurt and offence.”

Offence causing is a crime?

He has left posts at More in Common and the Jo Cox Foundation after the Mail on Sunday published accusations made by a former colleague while they both worked at charity Save the Children in 2015.

The Guardian hears from Jo Cox’s sister Kim Leadbeater, who says the family would “support Brendan as he endeavours to do the right thing by admitting mistakes he may have made in the past”. Mistakes he may have committed have been admitted to? Eh?

Well, it looks like they’ve had time to work it out because the Mail first reported the allegations in November 2015. Cox called them “untrue”:

Are they any more or less untrue now they’ve been repeated?

Labour MPs Yvette Cooper thinks some sort of justice has been served. “Hopefully we are seeing a change in climate and culture where people are recognising that those in positions of power should not abuse [those] positions,” Cooper told the Sky News programme Sunday with Niall Paterson.

And Labour MP Jess Phillips added – does she do anything other than talk to media? – “The fact of the matter is that it’s not enough just to say ‘oh, I’m sorry’. You have to show how you’re going to change the way you are in the future and I think Brendan, more so than many I’ve seen in this area, is actually trying to do that.”

One error and you need rewiring. How fair we are.

Public shaming of anyone who’s behaved “inappropriately” is a sad ambition. What happened to the rule of law and the right to defend yourself? When did the British wing of Saudi Arabia’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice start wathing us?

The country needs more and better housing. That much is certain. Demand outstrips supply. The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and more legislation rooted in it have stymied house building and skewed the market.

And since the 1972-1973 building boom when around 300,000 new homes were constructed – the current supply is around 200,000 new homes; demand is 250,000; Chancellor Hammond says we need 300,000 – technology has improved.

The problem that Britain has, partly as a result of cultural and governmental promotion of ownership, is that renting is, objectively speaking, second best. You can currently pay more in rent than an owner would in mortgage interest

Well, quite. It’s also true that the landlord doesn’t only pay a mortgage. Properties need to be maintained. Estate agencies are dedicated to overseeing property care, and ensuring a place is occupied. It’s not all profit.

But none of that explains why homes are not being built. It’s not about rented or owned; it’s about the total number of homes. We need more.

The question is why with such a pressing need for homes, so much land remains protected by legislation. If building homes is the priority, it’s time to free up the market and in so doing allow more of the less well off the opportunity to own their own homes and not be beholden to the State.

Not done with trolling the US through Russia Today, the allegation is that Vladimir Putin meddled in the 2016 US election, chiefly backing Donald Trump in his against-the-odds victory over the pre-ordained Hillary Clinton. This week 13 Russians have been criminally charged with interfering in the 2016 US election. Also implicated is so-called “troll farm” the Internet Research Agency. A 37-page indictment alleges Russians were “supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J Trump … and disparaging Hillary Clinton”.

Foreign entities interfering in US elections is wrong. Barack Obama would never do that.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 3— As President Clinton and President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia began their first summit meeting today, Mr. Clinton presented the Russian leader with some $1 billion in American aid programs intended to support Russian democrats and spur the Western allies to make Russian reform their top foreign policy priority.

Among the new or expanded programs in the package were loan guarantees to build apartments for demobilized Russian soldiers; loans for Russian entrepreneurs; medical supplies, food and grain assistance; funds to help the Russian Government sell state-owned industries, and technical advisers to help repair pipelines and oil wells and begin exporting again.

Mr. Clinton said the package was intended to help promote free-market skills on a grass-roots level in both Moscow and the Russian countryside, so the movement toward democratic reform would continue no matter who governs in the Kremlin.

Is it only criminal when we don’t like the outcome? Is democracy being damaged by Russian oligarchs or helped by foreign billionaires? Do we only like the obscenely wealthy foreigners meddling with democracy when they’re on our side?

Oxfam’s chief executive Mark Goldring has been talking to the Guardian. The paper says the mood at Oxfam is one akin to a “sudden bereavement” – much like Haitians felt when 200,000 of them were killed in an earthquake, or worse?

Oxfam staff are “close to tears”. Goldring “hasn’t slept for six nights and he looks stricken,” we’re told. Anyone wondering why Goldring chose to speak with the Guardian and not, say the Daily Mail or Times, which broke the story of Oxfam’s alleged laissez-faire attitude to criminality and sexual exploitation by its staff? This is less interview than PR.

Goldring was “justifiably fretting that his words would be wilfully twisted to do Oxfam yet more damage”. But here he is in the Guardian, a man in mourning wondering if the inheritance tax and death duties will damage the brand. He complains of being “savaged” in the media, his words “manipulated”. No danger of that in the Guardian, which sees good in the simple act of a grown man at the top of powerful multi-million pound organisation – last year’s income: £408.6 million – talking “alone, unchaperoned by press officers” – one of the 20 full-time press officers the Times says are on Oxfam’s books. He is “unguarded and candid. The impression I form is of someone telling the truth: if Goldring has been guilty of anything, I think it might be naivety about the vulnerability of almost any organisation in the febrile public mood of distrust.”

It’s not so much about Oxfam lying and covering up alleged criminality and exploiting the bereft and genuinely bereaved, allowing staffers to leave without a stain on their CVs and thus best able to secure other jobs at other aid organisations, which some did, it’s about you. Asked why Oxfam lied and covered up immoral behaviour by some of its staff, Goldring offers:

“That was wrong. I believe it was done in good faith to try to balance being transparent and protecting Oxfam’s work. I don’t think [Oxfam] wanted to promote a sensation and damage the delivery of [the Haiti] programme. With hindsight, we should have said more. I’ve been clear about that since this broke. But if Oxfam’s business is to help save lives, if your organisation is there to actually help make the world a better place, I can see why people thought this was the right thing to do.”

It’s you they don’t trust, you judgemental sods who give so generously to Oxfam. It’s about ring-fencing your giving from people who don’t have the best of intentions. It might be about the Haitians, but don’t worry about them. Just give. Oxfam will decide what they need.

Goldring adds:

“The intensity and the ferocity of the attack makes you wonder, what did we do? We murdered babies in their cots? Certainly, the scale and the intensity of the attacks feels out of proportion to the level of culpability. I struggle to understand it. You think: ‘My God, there’s something going on there.’”

He is then invited to go on the attack. The Guardian leads him to the escape hatch and kicks it open:

Is it that political opponents of international aid – the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel – are exploiting Oxfam’s crisis? He hesitates.

Are leading Tories the problem here? Goldring dismisses the idea out of hand, saying that it’d be a sick irony to present Oxfam as the victims of an opportunist, self-serving elite. No, of course not. He says:

“Others are better to judge whether that’s right or wrong. I don’t think it’s right for Oxfam to say that at the moment, because even that feels self-serving. What I’m really concerned about is that this is not used as an approach to attack aid.” But it already is. “Yes. It is.”

Good job it’s not about first world westerners, the rich, saintly and knowing, riding in to save the hapless, perpetually needy Third Worlders from starvation and poverty by telling them how many babies to have, that Fairtrade is better than GM, that to live ‘ethically’ is ideal, water is best when it comes not from pipes by from wells dug by Prince William, and if they’re lucky a celebrity coloniser will adopt one of them. Good job it’s not about the vain and well off controlling the impoverished and using them to show off their own moral goodness. It’s not about them. It’s all about us. Charity, after all, begins at home…

Kevin de Bruyne is a terrific player. Watching the Chelsea reject play so well at Manchester City is Michael Owen, the former Manchester United and Liverpool striker, and sometime pilot. The Manchester Evening News picks up his thoughts and thunders: “Kevin de Bruyne has surpassed Manchester United greats, insists Michael Owen.”

Better than Best, Edwards, Law and Giggs? De Bruyne’s good, but is he that good? The story continues:

One day on and the MEN has a follow-up scoop, thundering: “Manchester United fans blast Michael Owen over Paul Scholes claims.”

Paul Scholes is hailed by many as the best passer there has ever been.

Barcelona legend Xavi described him as the finest central midfielder he had ever seen – and many a former teammate has praised his pinpoint accuracy. But, Michael Owen has other ideas.

United’s former No.7 claims Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne is a level above the United great.

Controversial stuff – and it would have been had Owen said it. Over on the Premier League’s official website, Owen says de Bruyne is not the best passer but the best at “assists”. The MEN’s story is utter bunkum.

Wonder no more what an atom looks like. David Nadlinger, a physicist at Oxford University, has taken a photo of an atom suspended in an electric field. The incredible thing is that this atom is visible to the naked eye. Well, we can the light emitted from it.

The image, “Single Atom in an Ion Trap”, won Nadlinger top prize in UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) science photo and imaging contest.

If we zoom in, you can see the atom – it’s the small dot in the centre of the photo.

‘Single Atom in an Ion Trap’, by David Nadlinger, from the University of Oxford, shows the atom held by the fields emanating from the metal electrodes surrounding it. The distance between the small needle tips is about two millimetres.

When illuminated by a laser of the right blue-violet colour the atom absorbs and re-emits light particles sufficiently quickly for an ordinary camera to capture it in a long exposure photograph. The winning picture was taken through a window of the ultra-high vacuum chamber that houses the ion trap.

Laser-cooled atomic ions provide a pristine platform for exploring and harnessing the unique properties of quantum physics. They can serve as extremely accurate clocks and sensors or, as explored by the UK Networked Quantum Information Technologies Hub, as building blocks for future quantum computers, which could tackle problems that stymie even today’s largest supercomputers.

“The idea of being able to see a single atom with the naked eye had struck me as a wonderfully direct and visceral bridge between the minuscule quantum world and our macroscopic reality,” says Nadlinger. “A back-of-the-envelope calculation showed the numbers to be on my side, and when I set off to the lab with camera and tripods one quiet Sunday afternoon, I was rewarded with this particular picture of a small, pale blue dot.”

When Ant McPartlin’s lawyers thrash out any divorce settlement with his estranged wife Lisa Armstrong, they may refer to the Sun’s reporting on the family fortune.

In today’s paper the news is that Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon have been “comforting” Lisa and offering “real support”. That news of their good hearts should emerge just as Britain’s Got Talent, the show on which the pair work as judges hits the PR circuit, is surely coincidental and not opportunistic tosh pulled from cynicism’s deepest mine.

Of more interest is that Sun’s news that Ant is “prepared to part with half his £62m fortune”. You might suppose that money accrued by childhood sweethearts who’ve ben married for 11 years would belong to both of them. The message could be: “Lisa is prepared to part with half her fortune”?

And it’s not £62m. Well, not according to the, er, Sun it isn’t.

One thing is clear: in the tabloids the money is always his and not hers.

Karen Smith is the teacher who allegedly assaulted a pupil who did not stand for the US Pledge of Allegiance, the classroom staple written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister’s son from upstate New York. (He went on to work in advertising.)

The BBC says Miss Smith has been charged with “child abuse – recklessly and with injury” and with third-degree assault. It is alleged that when the kid didn’t stand for the Pledge at Agevine Middle School, Colorado, the gym teacher pulled the child up by their jacket and walked them out the classroom.

Local school officials say students can sit or stand during the pledge. Federal law permits students to sit.

The school district released a statement to parents after the arrest saying they “are co-operating with the District Attorney’s Office and respect their decision on this matter”.

“We are unable to comment further because it remains a personnel matter that the school district is actively investigating.”

One site calls it an act of “political violence against a child”. I’d be more interested in who called the police. And there’s the religion. The part of the Pledge about the US being a nation “under God” was added in 1954, following a campaign by a Catholic outfit called the Knights of Columbus and others.

The school has sent out a missive:

Dear Angevine Middle School Families,

I hope everyone is having a good evening.

I am reaching out to you tonight to let you know that we will have a substitute teacher working with some of our PE classes for the time being.

While I cannot share much information, following an incident today at school, Ms. Smith was placed on paid administrative leave. We are working closely with our partners at the Lafayette Police Department. We believe in due process and therefore ask that everyone respect Ms. Smith’s privacy at this time.

We are dedicated, as always, to supporting our students and ensuring that we have qualified educators working with them during their physical education time.

Thank you for your patience and support. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Mike Medina

Principal

Angevine Middle School

Question: who’d want to be a teacher? What would a pledge look like in UK schools?

No sooner has John McDonnell outlined his ambition to renationalise energy, rail and water than news reaches us of a shortfall. The Guardian notes:

Transport for London (TfL) has insisted it is not facing a financial crisis despite planning for a near £1bn deficit next year after a surprise fall in passenger numbers.

Mr McDonnell told BBC Radio 4’s Today earlier:

“It would be cost free. You borrow to buy an asset and when that asset is producing profits like the water industry does, that will cover your borrowing cost.”

The assets make the profits. The profits pay the bills. What about if people alter their behaviour?

He went on:

“We aren’t going to take back control of these industries in order to put them into the hands of a remote bureaucracy, but to put them into the hands of all of you – so that they can never again be taken away.”

But bureaucrats will still run the entity, albeit ones appointed by the State, right? Who are they accountable to? How does anyone get redress for poor service? Is McDonnell seeking to serve taxpayers best or just tying to give meaning, direction and authority to the State?

“Public ownership is not just a political decision, it’s an economic necessity. We’ll move away from the failed privatisation model of the past, developing new democratic forms of ownership, joining other countries, regions and cities across the world in taking control of our essential services.”

So you take over the London Underground, and budget accordingly. And then there’s a £1bn deficit. Which means..? As Ronald Reagan put it in 1986: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

But business has never been independent of the State. What of PPI, regulation and subsidies, which rather dampen the idea that immense profits are being made? (In 2006-7, the Government spent £6.8 billion of public money in the the privatised rail industry – around half what it cost to run the entire thing.) What of Government calls for curbs on executive pay and vows to “fix the broken housing market”? So much for the free market.

Tony Blair told us “Stability can be a sexy thing”. Theresa May wants to be “strong and stable”. They seek to maintain the status quo. Doesn’t that add up to the established businesses and their links to Government rolling on and on and not entrepreneurship, the best of which is often triggered by volatility and daring?

McDonnell’s monocular and forgetful call for re-nationalisation has not come out of the blue. It’s just an addendum to current and recent Government policy and a crisis of purpose.

Local matters, now, in the Cotswolds, where some locals might be more local than others. It’s all about when it’s right and proper to lay down your marker.

The Leigh family took possession of Adlestrop Park, formerly monastic land, in 1553. The land was handed down the family line. Things were built on it. One Leigh, the Rev Thomas Leigh (d 1813), was uncle of the novelist Jane Austen, who visited the family pile and assorted buildings in 1794, and again in 1799 and 1806. Some suppose the place inspired Austen to create Sotherton Court, the estate in her book Mansfield Park.

Jane Austen stayed with her Leigh cousins at Adlestrop several times and kept in constant touch with events there by letter. It was in Gloucestershire that she saw at first-hand how the eighteenth-century craze for improvements totally changed the village landscape. It is probable that Adlestrop Park and the Parsonage House inspired fictional places such as Thornton Lacey in Mansfield Park.

The Leighs don’t live in the village they changed in a flurry of faddish spending. Their former estate is owned by the Collins family. They dug deep into the pockets and helped fund the refurbishment of the local church’s five bells.

Now the rector and churchwardens have asked a consistory court to let Dominic Collins install a hatchment, a coat of arms display, in the church in memory of his late wife. But the idea was opposed by local historian and Austen expert Victoria Huxley, who said it was inappropriate to install a memorial to a family who were not the Leighs.

She writes:

“I was very surprised that someone with a relatively short link to the village (compared to the age of the church) should seek to place their coat of arms in the church, and I do not think that most people in the village have been alerted to this request… feel that only a family which has strong ties over several generations should have such a display.”

Are you local enough?

June Rogers, chancellor of the diocese of Gloucester, is unimpressed with that reasoning, arguing: “The Jane Austen connection does not preserve in aspic this church. As the Leighs succeeded Evesham Abbey, so the Collins family is now in residence. Another layer has been added to the life and continuity of this village.”

Hasn’t it always been about marking the wealthy’s territory, including being closer to God and other seats of power than thee? As one visitor to Adlestrop writes:

Inside the church are many marble memorials to the Leigh family both on the walls and on the floor of the nave… On the north wall of the nave are some Leigh family hatchments showing their dynastic marriages to the Twisleton and Brydges family..

The tower has a clock on its north and east side which was added to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, and the fine arch and lantern at the entrance to the churchyard were added on her Diamond Jubilee. The sundial in the churchyard marks Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee.

Taylor Swift’s lyrics are too banal to copyright. US Judge Michael W Fitzgerald has ruled in a case of alleged copyright infringement against the singer.

Songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler claimed Swift’s song Shake It Off stole from their tune Playas Gon’ Play. They argued that Swift’s lyric relied on their lyric, “playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate.”

Shakers gotta shake; makers gotta make; takers gotta take

Fitzgerald was unimpressed. His ruling is golden:

As reflected in Defendants’ RJN, and as Plaintiffs acknowledge, by 2001, American popular culture was heavily steeped in the concepts of players, haters, and player haters. Although Plaintiffs recognize as much, they allege that they “originated the linguistic combination of playas/players playing along with hatas/haters hating…” Plaintiffs explain that the plethora of prior works that incorporated “the terms ‘playa’ and hater together all revolve about the concept of ‘playa haters’” – a “playa” being “one who is successful at courting women,” and a “playa hater” being “one who is notably jealous of the ‘playas’” success.”… Plaintiffs explain that Playas Gon’ Play “used the terms in the context of a third party, the narrator of a song who is neither a ‘playa’ nor a hater, stating that other people will do what they will and positively affirming that they won’t let the judgment of others affect them.

Isn’t it great.

The concept of actors acting in accordance with their essential nature is not at all creative; it is banal. In the early 2000s, popular culture was adequately suffused with the concepts of players and haters to render the phrases “playas … gonna play” or “haters … gonna hate,” standing on their own, no more creative than “runners gonna run,” “drummers gonna drum,” or “swimmers gonna swim.” Plaintiffs therefore hinge their creativity argument, and their entire case, on the notion that the combination of “playas, they gonna play” and “haters, they gonna hate” is sufficiently creative to warrant copyright protection…

Looking at this this case from a potentially-protectable-short-phrase perspective, the lyrics in question are not sufficiently creative to warrant protection… Even if, as Plaintiffs contend, Plaintiffs were the first to employ the concepts of players playing and haters hating for the purpose of expressing “the idea of not concerning yourself with what other people do and think” … the allegedly-infringed lyrics consist of just six relevant words – “playas … gonna play” and “haters … gonna hate.” In order for such short phrases to be protected under the Copyright Act, they must be more creative than the lyrics at issue here.

As discussed above, players, haters, and player haters had received substantial pop culture attention prior to 2001. It is hardly surprising that Plaintiffs, hoping to convey the notion that one should persist regardless of others’ thoughts or actions, focused on both players playing and haters hating when numerous recent popular songs had each addressed the subjects of players, haters, and player haters, albeit to convey different messages than Plaintiffs were trying to convey. In short, combining two truisms about playas and haters, both well-worn notions as of 2001, is simply not enough.

At the hearing, Plaintiffs’ counsel offered alternative (very clunky) formulations of pairing a noun with its intransitive verb, thereby suggesting that “[noun] gonna [verb]” was creative in itself. While clever, this argument does not persuade. The argument ultimately only makes sense if the use of “gonna” as a contraction of “is going to” is sufficiently creative, or (as discussed above) one can claim creativity in asserting that a type of person acts in accordance with his or her inherent nature. To explicitly state the argument is to see how banal the asserted creativity is.

In sum, the lyrics at issue – the only thing that Plaintiffs allege Defendants copied – are too brief, unoriginal, and uncreative to warrant protection under the Copyright Act. In light of the fact that the Court seemingly “has before it all that is necessary to make a comparison of the works in question” … the Court is inclined to grant the Motion without leave to amend. However, out of an abundance of caution, the Court will allow Plaintiffs one opportunity to amend, just in case there are more similarities between Playas Gon’ Play and Shake it Off than Plaintiffs have alleged thus far (which Plaintiffs’ counsel did not suggest at the hearing). If there are not, the Court discourages actual amendment. The more efficient course would be for Plaintiffs to consent to judgment being entered against them so that they may pursue an appeal if they believe that is appropriate.

Shane Townley writes: “Watch as this kid runs and screams throughout the entire flight while the mother does little to nothing to stop him. Three years old on a 8 hour flight from Germany to Newark NJ. He never quits!”

The noise is appalling. The annoyance huge. The child’s energy impressive. And looking down on Other Parents is a simple joy.

But the story is incomplete. We’re the fourth wall, but the film’s maker was there. There’s no sign that the person behind the camera did anything to help quell the din nor find out if the child is suffering from some medical condition.

You just point, click and publicly shame.

And it looks as though there’s money to be made from filming other people’s children. On YouTube the video comes with the message:

This video is being managed exclusively by Newsflare. To use this video for broadcast or in a commercial player go to: https://www.newsflare.com/video/17020… or email: contact@newsflare.com or call: +44 (0) 20 3937 6280

Over the years, various countries have accused the world’s only Jewish state of using a variety of less conventional secret agents. To date, they have identified the following creatures as being Israeli spies:

A Falcon (Turkey)
A Dolphin (Hamas)
A Shark (Egypt)
A Eagle (Syria)
A Griffon Vulture (Saudi Arabia)
A Vulture (Sudan)
A Bee-eater (Turkey)
A Boar (Palestinian Authority)
A Hyena (Palestinians)
A Rat (Palestinian New Agency)
A Kestrel (Hezbollah)

Today brings news that the Israelis are in cahoots with lizards, naturally.

Hassan Firuzabadi, a former chief-of-staff of Iran’s armed forces and key advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says Israel is using lizards to “attract atomic waves” and spy on his country’s nuclear program.

“Several years ago, some individuals came to Iran to collect aid for Palestine… We were suspicious of the route they chose,” he tells the ILNA news agency.

“In their possessions were a variety of reptile desert species like lizards, chameleons… We found out that their skin attracts atomic waves and that they were nuclear spies who wanted to find out where inside the Islamic Republic of Iran we have uranium mines and where we are engaged in atomic activities.”

Lizards, of course, are not spying for the Israelis. They are spying for their fellow members of the House of Windsor.

To Minnesota, where the local censors have banned students from studying copies of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Anyone reading either book will be “humiliated or marginalised” by the language therein. (Yeah, they’re that good. Stick a ‘censored’ and ‘explicit lyrics’ label on them and watch the cool kids lap it up.)

The Duluth school district will allow the texts to sit on shelves in the libraries, but they won’t be on the curriculum for ninth and 11th-grade English classes, reports the Bemidji Pioneer. Pupils that age – and we’re talking about 16-year-olds – just can’t handle it.

Duluth’s director of ‘curriculum and instruction’ Michael Cary says he wants to “teach the same lessons” as To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn in other ways, perhaps with finger puppets, cotton wool and the great American hashtag. Anti-racist texts, see, should contain no hint of the racism they’re satirising and destroying, in much the same way that books on World War 2 should feature no examples of anti-Jewish rhetoric, and histories of the US Civil War contain no violence and examples of ‘hate speech’. The past is the past. If history is not to be repeated it must be forgotten.

“We felt that we could still teach the same standards and expectations through other novels that didn’t require students to feel humiliated or marginalised by the use of racial slurs,” says Carey.

Oddly, this mollycoddling is supported by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, whose regional president Stephan Witherspoon thinks the books are “just hurtful” and use “hurtful language that has oppressed the people for over 200 years”.

“It’s wrong,” he decrees. “There are a lot more authors out there with better literature that can do the same thing that does not degrade our people. I’m glad that they’re making the decision and it’s long overdue, like 20 years overdue. Let’s move forward and work together to make school work for all of our kids, not just some, all of them.”

Now school’s not working for any of them. Which is surely what equality is all about. Oh, brave new world.

The Times‘ scoop that Oxfam put its reputation ahead of the needs of the people it purports to save is a cracker. Oxfam staffers saw in people’s pain and destitution a chance to abuse and debase Haitians. The numbers around the January 2010 earthquake are staggering: 220,000 lives lost; 300,000 injured; 1.5 million people destitute. Oxfam arrived on the seen. It’s 230 staff had a mission to help. The senior staffers also had money, the backing of the British state and the power that brings. A whistleblower spoke out:

“The group lived in a guesthouse rented by Oxfam that they called the ‘pink apartments’ — they called it ‘the whorehouse’. They were throwing big parties with prostitutes. These girls were wearing Oxfam T-shirts, running around half-naked, it was a like a full-on Caligula orgy. It was unbelievable. It was crazy. At one party there were at least five girls and two of them had Oxfam white T-shirts on. These men used to talk about holding ‘young meat barbecues’.”

The charity is in full panic mode. Exposed as complicit in morally despicable and criminal acts (prostitution is illegal in Haiti) including the allegation of sex with underage women – which should be called out for what it is: child rape – chief executive Mark Goldring told staff that The Times report “very, very hard to read”. The truth for those who wanted it hidden, as is alleged, often is.

Roland van Hauwermeiren, Oxfam’s top man in Haiti who bought women, was afforded a “phased and dignified exit”. No blemish on his CV was recorded, doubtless helping him secure a job running a charity in Bangladesh. Three other senior staffers were sacked. No word on their resumes, neither. Oxfam covered up the sleaze.

On September 5, 2011, “Oxfam issued a press statement reporting that a small number of staff had been ‘involved in a number of instances of misconduct’“. Misconduct? “It stressed that it “was not related to fraud and did not affect the approximately US$98 million Oxfam fundraised following the earthquake in Haiti”. Phew! Just using the money to have sex with the vulnerable and dispossessed you’re rode into town to help. So long as you’re investing in the local economy and not stealing it.

We are the West, we know best! It is no surprise that last year Haiti banned 257 NGOs for being, as the minister Aviol Fleurant put it, “disconnected from the priorities and needs of the Haitian people”.

He’s not wrong. In 2011, Oxfam quoted Roland Van Hauwermeiren, country director for Oxfam in Haiti:

“Too many donors from rich countries have pursued their own aid priorities and have not effectively coordinated amongst themselves or worked with the Haitian government…

“If Haitians are to support themselves then the reconstruction effort must also give priority to helping people earn a living. Above all else, Haitians want to get back to work and provide for their families.”

Does pulling on a wig and acting like a woman make you a woman? In Hollywood there’s a backlash against wigging. It’s when men pull on wigs, dress like women and perform stunts in place of the female star for TV and movies. the thinking is, perhaps, that the stunt men in wigs are more expendable than the actress.

But stuntwomen – well, one stuntwoman – say wigging is preventing her getting work. It’s a man doing a woman’s job. Deven MacNair, a Los Angeles-based stunt artiste, is looking to sue Hollywood’s acting union and a production company because a man in drag did a stunt she could have done.

“The practice is so common, ” she says. “It’s historical sexism – this is how it’s been done since the beginning of time.”

Fair enough. We can’t have men in wigs taking jobs women can do, even if it they do well enough to earn them plaudits.

This man’s job is to climb down London’s sewer network and blast away “fatbergs” that clog it. Have there been any calls recently for gender equality in the sewage clearance sector? Because the sewage industry seems to be dominated by men: perhaps it’s time to address this? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/CRrWWdSgAX

The use of sarin was Barack Obama’s “red line”. You can shoot, stab, and smash them with barrel bombs, but using chemical weapons to kill Syrians is bad.

The use of chemical weapons turned Syria’s embattled dictator Bashar al-Assad’s war against the rebels into a war crime. He must be stopped because it “is not just that President Assad might start using his chemical arsenal in much greater quantities… [but also] the prospect of it falling into even less benign hands.”

It’s not about ending the war in Syria; it’s about preventing us being next. It was also a connived argument against intervention – we only go if there are people being killed by poisoned gas. Starvation and a lack of medial aid for the critically ill exacerbated by armed blockades are morally superior ways to die.

There are no good choices — good outcomes in Syria are impossible to imagine. But if it is proved to a certainty that Assad is trying to kill his people with chemical weapons, then Obama may have no choice but to act, not only because he has put the country’s credibility on the line (Iran and North Korea are undoubtedly watching closely), but also because the alternative — allowing human beings to be murdered by a monstrous regime using the world’s most devilish weapons, when he has the power to stop it — is not a moral option for a moral man.

As Timenoted: “Rebels’ use of chemical weapons] could force Obama into the deeper engagement he has long resisted: the alarming prospect that radical Islamists could acquire Syrian chemical weapons and try to use them beyond Syria’s borders, perhaps even within the US.”

Just as Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction led us into Iraq, WMDs would pull us into action in Syria.

You might wonder if WMD gases are more potent than conventional method of mass killing, as one expert told The Register: “Far from possessing any special deadliness, chemical warheads are less potent than ordinary conventional-explosive ones. Calling them “WMD”, which suggests they are in some way equivalent to nuclear bombs, is simply ridiculous.’ He concluded: ‘So, if your aim is to kill and injure as many people as possible, you’d be a fool to use chemicals. And yet chemicals are rated as WMD, while ordinary explosives aren’t.”

But there is no time to pause and consider the facts. We are 45-minutes from certain death. We must go in now.

We never did find any WMD in Iraq. And now news reaches us that more big weapons have vanished in the Middle East. Newsweek reports:

Jeremy Corbyn is something of an expert on anti-Semitism – which given his role as leader of the Labour Party, ‘friend’ of Hamas and a former presenter on Iran’s Press TV is no great shock. Corbyn has spotted something anti-Jewish in the ranks of Tottenham Hotspur fans. No, he’s not swapping allegiances from Arsenal to Spurs. He wants Spurs fans to sing what he tells them to and stop cheering for the ‘Yid Army’.

He told the Guardian before Spurs and Arsenal played each other yesterday: “There has been racist abuse at past matches between Arsenal and Spurs – instances of antisemitism and homophobia. Yes, football fans get very passionate but that is not acceptable and not allowed.”

“Yid chants are unacceptable,” adds Corbyn. “It plays into something that’s not very good and we should be saying: ‘We’re the Spurs’ or ‘We’re the Arsenal’. Stick to your club; it’s your club that unites you. The idea of adopting a term to neutralise it doesn’t really work because it is identifying a club by an ethnic group or faith, whereas you should be identifying clubs through supporters.”

You might at this point suppose the Guardian has been duped by an arch-satirist. You’re looking for Shami Chakrabarti to pop up and say that she’s never heard a thing – and for Corbyn to nationalise Tottenham and install Dame Shami as the club’s new striker. But the real Corbyn is no fan of Yid Armies, so it is very probably him doing his bit for his core electorate.